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The Unknown
Mission Log: Entry #3 We are still trying to get away from the Ark. An icy wind blows across this chunk, threatening to freeze us straight to the creative spark. We need to find away off of this, this infernal place. We watch the foreboding land around us, not knowing what awaits us in this forested wilderness. Our supplies from the Ark are still safe, tucked away in Avi's satchel, but still, I fear we will not be able to find a way out of here before we smash from hunger or thirst. I can see the frozen ocean from the side of the mountain we have camped upon; for that is where myself, Avi, Versil, Padrex, and the robot are currently resting. I can see the sun setting in the distance, through a curtain of storm clouds, and it strikes me as picturesque. Despite that fact that I assure myself that no, I have not been here before, a certain sensation assures me that I have indeed. I lay in my solar bag, typing these word on this screen, and I wonder why my life is not the same as it had been before. For no, I was not created in the Ark, like many other minifigures; I remember dimly that I come from a place where the sun shines and people jovially converse in lush, populated lands, not a snowy wasteland like what this chunk is. I cannot comprehend why. But that does not matter. What matters is to find the second Ark, the one with Rockets, so that we may get off of this place. The robot has two panels extending from its spherical body at the moment; he tells me he is changing himself, but I do not understand him. "You would not understand basic scientific principles in a state of LTC Anesthesia," he assures me. At least, I believe he is trying to assure me. The tone in his voice tells me that- Oh. I believe our rest is over. We must disembark for the Second Ark. Good day. Avi's Diary: Entry I The following has been transcribed from Avi's handwritten diary. I have taken the liberty of correcting a handful of grammatical errors and typing the words in readable computer characters, rather than writing in an illegible cursive scrawl. We've just walked away from our resting spot. The snow's still knee deep and we're still tolling up the side of this pine-covered mountain, but other than that, nothing has changed. I'm still as cold as a quicksicle, as is everyone else, I believe, because there weren't any parkas or snow coats in the Ark. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself and the others! Me, as in the one who wrote the words you're currently reading, am Avi, and I believe in being really, really positive. The unofficial leader of our team is Lyn. He can get really solemn-in fact, you'll almost certainly see him with a frown on his face-but he's still a great guy. Padrex is the smartest guy on the team; he can fix anything. However, the downside is that he'll break whatever he fixed with his incredibly lame sense of humor and puns. Also, Versil's the guy who's pretty much got all the sense here; when we have a plan, he doesn't think something's going to utterly fail in every way (Lyn); he won't believe something will definitely work (myself); and he won't merely crack some random joke in response (Padrex, obviously). Oh, and there's also QUantum Energy Robotic Construct, or QUERC. He's this white spherical robot thing on treads, with some wires exposed around a big, green eye that stares at you like you're insane. He's the real reason we're not sawing logs in the Ark right now. We happened to be engaged in cryosleep chambers, slumbering away, when QUERC woke us up for reasons he hasn't revealed yet. We followed him out of the Ark, onto a small, snowy plain, where each of us strangely knew we remembered each other from somewhere else. We still couldn't pinpoint where, though. And then QUERC , totally casually, told us this: We'd been in cyrosleep for 320 years. Mission Log Entry #5 We have reached the apex of the mountain we were previously climbing. It is minus thirty four degrees here, and I am feeling like an icicle. However, we can see for miles in every direction here. To the North, there is naught but the ocean. To the east, there are merely more mountains. To the south, there is a low lying forest. But to the west, there is what looks strangely like a road. It is a long stretch of bare snow surrounded by pine trees on either side. Avi believes we should head straight for it; however, she is much too optimistic for reality. Night has just fallen, and the mountain is several miles across; we would never be able to get down in time. So, on that thought, we camped in the lee of the icy wind, a few yards away from the summit. We are resting in a snow cave at the moment, dug out of the side of this mountain, and I lay in my solar blanket again, wondering what the true purpose of our journey may be. Are we to find civilization? Or will we create our own? These thoughts race in my head like the wind which blows outside this cave. My eyes swivel to the robot, whose eye has been covered by two metal shutters. What a curious thing to do when he does not need to sleep. I ask him what he is doing, and his eye opens. He replies that he is saving his batteries. The phrase sounds familiar, though I cannot comprehend why; this makes me think on what my past was. Only a few blurry memories remain. I conjure up a mental image of a white room, brightly lit by a large window, with a bed in the corner and a metal desk set in the wall. On the desk sits a computer, un-powered, with several knick knacks and bric-a-brac surrounding it; mugs, trash, a pencil holder. Whenever I chose to look out the window, I would see an amazing sight: a gigantic drop-off, the bottom obscured by a fog, with several Rockets flying around, their owners joyriding and racing each other. I then pull myself out of the scene; I feel my eyelids drooping. Good day. Avi's Diary: Entry II At the moment, we're resting at the base of the mountain, eating what you might call lunch. We're about a mile or so from a road we spotted last night. Lyn says he thinks it's not a road at all, but he's such a pessimist. Of course it's a road. QUERC's had his solar panels extended ever since we left that snow cave, complaining in a monotone that his "Lithium ion batteries have developed a electron leak". I don't know what he means by that at all, but I think he's leaking power into his circuits or something. Strangely, we seem to be the only ones here. I haven't seen or heard anything like civilization here. It's like this place never had any other minifigures on it, ever. Well, except for those... things... from the Ark. I don't want to think about them, though. I certainly hope the Second Ark does not contain those dreadful creatures. But that's enough of that train of thought. Versil and Padrex are taking turns sharing jokes. (I don't mind Versil's sense of humor, but, as you know, Padrex's is... Well... I can't even describe it... ) Deciding it's been too long since I talked to Lyn, I pick myself up from the log I'm sitting on and walk over to Lyn, who's sitting with his back to a pine tree and gnawing on a tough piece of dry meat. I settle down on the opposite side of the tree, also leaning against the trunk, and try to strike up a conversation. "So... What do you think we're going to do when we get to the Second Ark?" I ask. "Get stored back in stasis," he replies morbidly. "The most likely cause of our removal from the first Ark was a lack of cryosleep," "Lyn! Don't say things like that!" I chide. "Don't blame me for usage of logical reason," he says, getting up and moving to another tree. Well, that's depressing. 320 years in cryosleep and we're just going to get stuffed right back into one of those chambers? What's the whole point of staying alive, then? It's like we don't even have a purpose! But we do, right? Right? ...Right? Mission Log: Entry #6 We struck the road an hour ago. Yes, despite the fact that all logic and reason states that there should not be a road in this desolate wilderness, there was a tangible road in the forest. After some debate, we decided to head southward, which lead downhill, instead of heading uphill. We were all quite exhausted from our climb yesterday and did not relish the prospect of another upward hike. The storm clouds which were obscuring the sun yesterday had moved over our position, and it began to snow. Our party trudged past about an acre before coming to a gigantic bridge. It seemed to be at least a mile long, though we could not discern its true distance, for its end was obscured in the downfall. The bridge might have been quite grand in its time, for I spotted several interesting art nouveau touches applied to the rails placed on each side; however, the concrete supports on our side were crumbling. I advised my compatriots not to try and cross it, but they did not listen. In desperation, I turned to the robot and asked him if the bridge would collapse or not, in order to persuade the others not to cross the structure. He replied by stating the chance of a bridge collapse is only nine percent. I'm inclined to believe even the robot cannot listen to reason. So, foolishly, we began to walk across the bridge. The side rails were extremely rusted, even falling apart, which was another omen. Of, course, when mentioned, it was ignored. If one looked to the side of the abyss the bridge spanned, one would see several more gigantic bridges like the one we were tramping across, in the snowy distance. It was a magnificent sight. However, at that moment, I was more concerned with several creaking and groaning noises issuing from the distance behind us. I held up my hand, stopping our party, and told everyone to listen. The groaning noises briefly intensified, but then stopped. We all sighed in content relief. And then the bridge began to slant. "The bridge is collapsing!" shouted Versil. "You think, captain obvious?" yelled Padrex. I seemed to be the only one who realized that we were about to fall into the dark reaches of space. "Everybody! Shut up and run!" I snapped to the group, already beginning to sprint. In my peripheral vision, I saw Avi running as well, with the robot flinging its treads into motion with a mechanical whine. Casting a backwards glance, I saw Versil and Padrex running as well, wide-eyed with fear. Also, farther back and nearly obscured by snowfall, I saw that the cracks in the concrete support had given way, with small hunks of bridge falling off the end. Also, alarmingly, that end of the bridge had lowered about twenty-five feet. I promised myself I would not foolishly look back again when I witnessed that. We continued to flee from the falling end of the bridge, dashing for our lives. I started to notice that the slope was visible then, but scarily, the end of the bridge still could not be seen. I pressed on even harder, adrenaline coursing through my veins, in a desperate effort not to smash. And then, through the curtain of snow that was falling, I finally saw the end of the bridge. However, my legs were burning, and the slope seemed to be gaining in inclination more every single second. I felt the tilt of the bridge making it harder to run; also, I heard the metal supports of the bridge creaking and snapping under tremendous strain. The other end seemed to be getting closer; all of us were fighting the incline and gasping for breath. The other end seemed only to be a hundred yards away by then. The bridge tilted more and more... Seventy yards away... My pace began to slow from the incline... Forty-five yards away... My lungs felt as if they were bursting... Twenty yards away... Then I slipped, falling with an almost audible smack on the concrete of the falling bridge. I began to slide towards the abyss, yelping for help. "Lyn!" my companions screamed as I slid towards certain doom. As I slid towards the gigantic crack, my skidding lubricated by the snow piled on the bridge, I rolled to the side twice and grabbed hold of the rusty railing on the side of the structure. I then quickly pulled myself up with the rail, glimpsing the rest of our group jump across a large, tilted gap to safety. My face stung from the fall, but what worried me most at that moment was the fact that I had trouble keeping my balance on the concrete, both from accumulated snow and the ever-increasing slope of the falling bridge. The shrieking metal of the snapping bridge supports provided an eerie background noise for the situation I had found myself in. I had no choice but to try and make a jump for my life. I released my grip on the rail, and instantly, I felt myself being pulled towards the bottomless void. In order to stop my fall, I began running towards my compatriots. By then, the bridge had tilted to a perfect diagonal, and I almost slipped twice on my way up. I only had twenty feet until I reached the other end of the bridge, which only refrained from falling because several lengths of bent rebar connected the bridge to another concrete support. I only had five yards until I reached the other end by then. Then, the rebar snapped. I sprinted up the last few yards and jumped off the falling bridge, stretching my arms out in front of me to desperately try and grab the broken ledge of concrete in front of me. I missed the concrete. Instead, my right hand caught onto a hanging piece of rebar. I dangled there for a few seconds before reaching up my other arm and grabbing the ledge. Versil helped pull me up onto the support. I then stumbled away from the broken end of the bridge, collapsing into a heap by Padrex and the robot, who were sitting by a fallen log. The sounds of the bridge twisting and breaking reverberated in the distance. "Told you so," I affirmed. Despite the fact we had nearly just been smashed, we all laughed. Avi's Diary: Entry III Quick recap of the unimportant things that happened during the time between this and the last entry: 1. We found the road and got really cold following it. 2. We crossed a bridge. 3. We had to cross said bridge while it was falling. 4. We continued following the road. Then, as we were walking, we saw two big, black monoliths ahead and to our right. At least, they seemed like they were black at that distance; the snowy veil in all directions seemed to be obscuring their true colors. "What are those things?" Versil questioned. Soon, we found ourselves nearing the obelisks. Once I got a good look at them, I realized they were quite old, and covered with moss and detritus. Each ruined pillar seemed to have once had a coat of paint on them, but now, the paint had degraded to the point where it was barely visible, exposing the bare stone underneath. As we walked, the road we had been walking on curved around the pillar in a half circle, tilting down into a sort of courtyard, which was where the monoliths rested. "Perhaps they're a natural aberration?" guessed Lyn. Yeah, something natural that was fully painted and is also smoothed out in a perfect cylindrical shape? Suuuuure. I walked over to the monoliths. As I moved closer, I saw a small, rusted metal plate, lying on the snowy ground next to the pillars. Wondering what it was, I tentatively picked it up. On first inspection, it seemed it was nothing special, but then I felt a few curious groves on its backside. Rust flaking off of the dirty thing, I flipped the plate over. It turned out that several words were inscribed on its metal surface. "Guys! C'mere! I found something!" I called, excited. "What? What is it?" Padrex questioned, with QUERC quick on his heels. "This plate. It says something on it!" I exclaimed, thrusting the plate into his hands. Versil, I, and Lyn all crowded in to see what the plate said. Padrex read the inscription aloud. "Here lies The Monument, proud achievement of the Nexus Force." We all stared at the plate for a moment. "The Monument... Why does that sound familiar?" Versil wondered aloud. "I do believe I've heard those words before, as well," commented Lyn. For some reason, I looked up at the monoliths. I had a strange, mental image of a gigantic, brightly painted fig with the monoliths for legs, the wielding a sword, which was striking at a strange, skeletal creature. Weird, huh? I was like I'd actually known what that thing looked like. In fact, I really, really thought that I had seen the Monument before, maybe before we'd been put in cryosleep? I don't know. At any rate, I thought I'd share that with Lyn; he was the one who remembered the most. "Hey, Lyn, can I talk to you for a second?" I asked. "I suppose," he replied. We both walked away from Versil and Padrex for a second, sitting down by the road. "Do you remember any of this place? This weird, broken Monument place? Maybe what the Monument itself looked like?" I inquired, making a few hand motions in the process. In the distance, I saw Padrex, grave-faced, doing something that looked like a cameo of Lyn. Versil was shaking his head for some reason and giving Padrex a thumbs-down. "Perhaps I do, perhaps I do not. But I do think I am feeling a bit of... What is the word? Veja Du?" Lyn wondered. "Yes, I think that's the right word," I said. Near the Monument, I saw Padrex fall flat on his face in a robotic way. Another horrible joke in development, probably. "I continuously see an image of a colossal figure, fighting a strange abomination," Lyn affirmed, staring at the Monument. "Yes! Yes, that's what I'm thinking of when I look at the Monument!" I exclaimed. At exactly the same time, Padrex, engrossed in his cameo, tripped over QUERC, who'd been charging, and fell on his back. Versil actually let out a real laugh at that. "Really?" Lyn questioned. "Perhaps we've been here before we were suspended in cryosleep..." "I've been thinking that, too..." Perhaps we had been to the Monument before... Mission Log: Entry #8 Note: Some entries of Lyn's Mission Log have been omitted. The reader may wonder why. This is because they detail events that have already been scripted in Avi's Diary. Thank you. After my conversation with Avi, I stood up and announced that we were leaving for the Second Ark. The rest of my company (with the obvious exception of the robot) groaned in dismay. "Do we have to?" Padrex complained. I sighed. "Yes, we indeed do. The sun is lowering and I would prefer not to spend another night in the a cold, open space." As if to illustrate my point, Versil shivered. "Then the Second Arky it is, captain!" Padrex exclaimed brightly. I groaned. After a short-lived search, our group found a cave mainly composed of shale, with a large opening. A few pinpricks of light shined through from the other side, but other than that, we could not see anything inside of it. "Tell me we're not going in there," groaned Avi. "Where else do we have to go?" I replied. Avi muttered something and walked into the cave. The rest of us followed suit. As I traveled farther inwards, I heard several sounds; water dripping, our own footsteps, and a few curious creaking noises. After about twenty minutes, we reached the other side of the cave. Nothing much was past the opening; it was merely a large, snow covered field, with a few hills. Suddenly, I tripped over something, landing on my face for the second time that day. I dusted myself off and looked, curious, at what had caused my fall. It was something that glinted like metal-because it was metal, I realized. It was a wrench, and a rather large one at that. Perfect, I realized, for an improvised weapon. I picked it up and continued walking. And then Padrex began shouting. "Look! Look! What is that?!" he yelled, pointing at something in the distance. I followed his shaking finger with my eyes. And yes, there was something in the distance. A building. A huge building. Was this what we had been looking for? Had we found the Second Ark? Avi's Diary: Entry IV After leaving the Monument thingy, we found and went through this dark, creepy cave. Then we emerged into a snowy plain. Wasn't much there, except some ridiculously big wrench Lyn found. Oh, and one Second Ark. Yep, that's right. We found the Second Ark. Padrex saw it from a distance, in that snow field. Lyn wasn't too optimistic about it being the actual Ark, but he's never optimistic about anything. Here was our chance! We were finally going to get our Rockets! Maybe even go home! Well, if we had a home. But that didn't matter! We'd make one! I thought. In a fit of enthusiasm, I rushed over to the Second Ark, yelling over my shoulder, "Last one to the Ark is... A rotten... Something!" I heard Lyn call out something, probably a warning to be careful, but I wasn't listening. I skidded to a halt in front of the Ark (or at least, what was almost certainly the Ark), to be greeted with something indescribably... Indescribably... Bricks, I can't find a better word than awesome to describe it! It was definitely big, for one thing. It also had a whole bunch of purple and red stripes, painted on black and grey walls. A couple empty metal cages, each one open, were set in the wall. I found myself positioned in front of a large, vertical door. Everyone else ran up behind me, gazing at the Ark as well. Pretty nice sight, but even more so from the fact that we'd finally made it. Then one little thing sunk in. "How do we open the door?" I asked, voicing the question on everyone's minds. "I dunno... Maybe we ring the doorbell?" Padrex joked, leaning against the door. A moment later, he drew back his hand with a yelp. "That thing burns!" he yelled, shoving his hand into a snow pile. I wasn't concerned about Padrex's hand. Almost all of my attention was fixed on the other robotic voice that had just spoken. "DNA scan complete. Welcome, Ark Specimen 004, to the Second Ark. If you have journeyed here, you are either looking for a second cryosleep submersion or-IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" "What the-" Versil started, but the voice interrupted him, drowning out the rest of his remark from some hidden speaker. "-for surviving the journey here with nothing but your wits and your Venture League gear, despite all natural and Maelstrom-induced odds. Therefore, specimen, we welcome you to the Second Ark (also formerly known as the Paradox Laboratory). Please depart to memory resurfacing terminaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-oooooooooooooooKZZT." "Well, that was-" Versil tried to say, but his voice was drowned out again by the sound of me crying out in pain. Annoyed that Padrex had been getting all the attention, I had punched the door. When I did, however, I felt something that was very hard to describe. It felt like my fist was on fire, but also emerged in ice water. The ice water feeling, however, didn't cancel out the fire-it somehow added onto the burning sensation. If I were asked to describe that feeling to the reader in one word, I'd say: "Ouch." Immediately I retracted my fist and hopped around in a circle for a bit before plunging my fist into the same snow pile Padrex had. "He's right," I said, squatting in an awkward position and panting breathlessly. "That does burn." "DNA scan complete. Welcome, Ark Specimen 002, to the Second Ark. If you have journeyed here, you are either looking for-" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, a second cyrosleep immersion. I just heard this, you stupid voice! Now open the door." I complained, almost punching the building again. "Interpreting command as 'open main door'. Opening main door. ... Problem encountered in opening main door. Opening main door." The door squeaked a bit. "Blockage detected in main door gear opening system. Performing manual override on main door." The door promptly fell in on itself, landing on the floor of the Second Ark with a thunk. Behind the main door, a large hallway, twice as wide as the door with the same color scheme as the outside of the Ark, stretched to another door like the one I'd just entered. Hundreds-wait, no-thousands more doors stood on the sides of the hallway. Each door had two other doors above it, which were accessible by catwalks that spanned the whole length of the hall. Also, I noticed every door had a sign above it. As we tentatively walked in, I read a few of the signs. Praying Mantis, Forbidden Valley. Green Dragon, Forbidden Valley. Red Dragon, Forbidden Valley. As we walked on, I noticed some of the signs had warning labels on them. Curious, I switched my gaze to those doors, instead. Hammer Stromling, Venture Explorer. (Warning: Do NOT release.) Spiderling, Venture Explorer. (Warning: Do NOT release.) Stromling, Avant Gardens. (Warning: Do NOT release.) And a whole lot more of (Warning: Do NOT release)s. Strangely, when I read the signs, I imagined a strange, fuzzy mental image for each thing. Each of them had red, unusually large eyes and were dripping purple paint in some places. The rest of the figures were just blurs of black, red and purple. "Welcome to the Second Ark, specimens 004 and 002. Please make your way to the end of the hallway," the voice from before said, ignoring Versil, QUERC, and Lyn. We kept walking. About halfway through the hallway, I saw several doors marked "VITRIFIED". Other than that, all the doors had weird letter-number combinations on their signs. Soon, we reached the end of the hallway. "Looks like this is it," Versil said, staring at a door to our right, with a sign that had the words "Memory Terminal" printed on its surface. After a few moments of silence, the voice sounded again. "The memory resurfacing room should be on the door to your right. Opening door now. ... Oh, come on. Do I have to break down every single door in the facility?" Like what happened with the main door, but with a smaller bang, the Memory Terminal door fell in on itself. Lyn approached the doorway tentatively. He peered into the room, apparently checking out what was behind the door. "Why aren't you going in there, Lyn?" I asked, for Lyn actually hadn't gone into the room. He'd just stood there. However, at the sound of my voice, he turned around, looking... Scared. Actually scared. I'd never seen Lyn look like that. He was supposed to be... Well... No offense to him, but he was supposed to be an emotionless put-downer. Lyn literally wasn't supposed to be scared. "Get over here," whispered Lyn, with a slight waver in his voice. We all huddled together in a group near the door. "That is not a memory terminal," Lyn began, keeping his voice very low. "It is a cryosleep room." We all stood there, shocked, for a second. "You have got to be kidding me," Versil whispered in reply. "Maybe you just saw a few cryo chambers and thought the room was full of them...?" I said. Even I thought my voice sounded hollow. "No. The room was actually full of them." Lyn affirmed, crossing his arms for emphasis. "Please proceed to the memory terminal," the voice prompted, with a hint of disapproval. "What are we gonna do?" worried Padrex. "Well... We do not have any other choice, and if we do not comply with this voice, we may have to face unforeseen consequences. It is hard to say this, but... We shall go in," said Lyn. We came out the huddle and slowly walked in, with Lyn keeping his wrench at the ready. The room was about twenty feet wide, and at least one hundred feet long, with more. And yes, it turned out that Lyn really was right. Rows upon rows of metal circles, on the floor. Cryosleep chambers. "So, uh, where's this memory terminal?" I asked with false cheer. "In any circle, of course. Specimens 002 and 004, please step into a circle," the voice asked. "Um, those are cryosleep chambers," said Versil, shifting his eyes around the room. "Specimens 002 and 004, please step into a circle," the voice said again, but colder. What was going on? "Look, machine," I said, looking around defiantly for any hidden cameras, "We know what those circles on the ground are. They're not memory terminals." "Please step into a circle or force will be applied," the voice replied, with a hint of malice. "I'm not stepping into a circle until I find out what's going on here," I affirmed, crossing my arms for extra emphasis. "This is your final warning," the voice monotoned darkly. "Step into a circle or force will be used." "Not until you explain yourself!" I shouted, taking a hostile step forward. "Answer interpreted as "Use force". Applying force." Without warning, the walls began to move, with a host of robotic whirring noises. They were splitting apart, revealing themselves to be composed of individual panels. The panels quickly began to move out of view, sliding upwards to someplace else. Meanwhile, the roof began doing the same thing. I looked up, amazed and scared for my life at the same time. Each panels, in turned out, was controlled by a silver robot arm, with overlapping sections plating itself that made it look armadillo-sis. Moving gradually, each panel was pulled out and taken up to the actual ceiling of the room, which was some twenty feet above us. Each arm discarded its panels, throwing them through small, rectangular holes in the ceiling that seemed to be built for that very purpose. And then the robotic arms began to move. They all descended, in a wave of metal, snapping their pincers every few feet. And yes, you read right, they had pincers. Metal ones. Soon they'd reached where the ceiling had been, beginning to move towards their intended targets. Us. I shrieked in horror as an arm grabbed my wrist, causing me to erratically slap at the metal thing with my free hand. That gave some other arms a chance to grab my legs, and I slowly began to be lifted into the air, towards a circle. "LET ME DOWN!" I screamed, catching a glance of the same thing happening to Padrex. The machine responded by throwing me into a circle. Without warning, a host of blue spikes shot up from the perimeter of the circle. Well, they weren't actually blue spikes-they were glass spikes, tinted sky blue. Each one was about seven feet high, threatening to hit the robotic arms if they had been in the way. As soon as they'd fully extended, the tip of each spike slowly began to hinge towards each other, beginning to form a cone around me. This was very, very alarming. I did not want to go back to cryosleep, and staying still was the ticket to sleeping. "HELP!" I shouted desperately, pushing against a spike to try and stop it from moving. "SOMEBODY! LYN! HELP!" And then, as if in response, none other than Lyn shattered the glass behind me, with that huge wrench. I crouched down to avoid a wave of blue glass shards hitting my back. I looked up to see that the arms had gone back to their higher position. "Excuse me for a moment," quipped Lyn, as he rushed over to save Padrex from his cryosleep chamber. I turned around just in time to see him run up and swing the wrench in a monumental heave, bringing it down on Padrex's almost-closed chamber. The wrench went through the glass spikes like a hot knife through butter. Each one collapsed within a millisecond of the other, raining down shards of glass on Padrex. He dodged to the side of his chamber to escape the torrent, though. I almost thought I could hear him whimpering. Heh. Versil come seemingly out of nowhere to see if he was alright. Then the voice spoke again. "Enabling cryosleep in three... Two... Wait, hold on. What happened to those chambers? Did you break them? What just happened? Is there some one else in there with you? Running bioscan..." The voice paused for a second. "Four life forms detected. There are others with you..." The arms began to move towards us again. "Run!" I shouted, leaping out of my half-broken chamber, towards the door. The others didn't hesitate to follow. We just made it before the claws reached our height. "Let's get out of here," I said. Mission Log: Entry #11 "I don't know. I just don't know what to think," Versil contemplated, pacing back and forth in front of the doorway to the cryosleep chamber. "I mean, this is an Ark. An Ark. It's supposed to, heck, it's actually designed to help us. So why did that recorded voice-I'm not even sure it's just a recorded voice anymore-trying to suspend us in cryosleep?" "I don't know," Myself, Avi, and Padrex chorused. Directly after this, a robotic arm from the cyrosleep room made a futile attempt to try and grab us. Futile in two senses- the first being that it was too short to reach any of us. The second being that I swung my wrench at its pincer, cleanly snapping it off from the rest of the arm. I was beginning to like my newfound weapon. "So... what do we do now?" Padrex asked. He still looked the slightest bit scared from our previous encounter. Another thing I noticed was that he seemed to be actually asking himself the question, not us. A faraway look entered his eyes, which were currently shifting around the room, looking for... something. "You obviously already know the answer to that," Versil said, looking at Padrex expectantly. "Well, what I'm thinking is this," Padrex said, who, to his credit, was actually acting serious for once. "We need to get out of here, right? Well, who says we can't just walk out the front door?" "I do," The robotic voice said. Several panels directly in front of the exit moved out of place, the robotic arms holding them and cohesively working to hold a system of panels in front of the doorway. "Awww, COME ON!" Avi shouted, clenching her fists at the door to illustrate a feeling of rage. Padrex muttered something offensive about recorded one-liners. "Well, I'm only really seeing one option now," Versil said, a grim line of determination on his face. Avi and Padrex looked at him, confused. "No. Just no," I responded. I knew exactly what he was thinking. Versil grinned back at me. "'Yes, Lyn, just yes. Now, where's the nearest computer?" “So, what’s the plan? Avi asked. We were in front of a door marked “Misc. Electronics”. “Well, The first thing we do is go in there,” Versil started, jerking a thumb at the Misc. Electronics door. “We grab some hacking stuff, which Padrex obviously knows how to use, right, Padrex?” A thumbs up from our resident jokester. “Good. Now, we’re going to have Padrex wire us up some weapons, too. Lyn’s good with his wrench, for now. Then, for the rest of us, I’m thinking short-range shock weapons, perhaps like a few heavily tweaked welders. Then, we’re going look for computers, using our weapons to take out any robo- arms that try to get us. We end up finding some computers, hopefully. Then Padrex uses his hacking tools to hack into the system and take out that crazy A.I slash recorded voice thingy, and we take escape pods out of here. Sound good?” “You know, we could just break those arms over there and actually walk out the front door,” Padrex pointed out. “Too risky,” I countered. “The arms could grab us, and then we would be figurative toast.” Padrex considered things for a moment. “Alright, let’s do this,” He confirmed. I went to open the door, but before I could turn the handle, a voice interrupted me. Not the monotonic voice of the A.I. behind our planned demise, but a different monotonic voice, one that was not planning our demise. QUERC’s. It turned out that all of us had forgotten about the white robot. I turned to face QUERC, curious as to what he had to say. “There is something I need to tell you. The reason you are here is this: you need to reawaken the other humans. Behind a door in this Ark, there are fifty minifigures. They need to be reawoken. The world must be repopulated, Lyn. It is the truth. I know you wanted to know the truth upon your awakening, but it had to be withheld from you.” “And why is that?” I asked. My voice seemed to have degraded down to a near whisper. Possibly from shock. My head spun with a thousand different thoughts. “If I had told you that upon your awakening, you would have tried to save the humans in the First Ark. That would have been unacceptable. Your loyalty to your species would have caused yourself, and possibly your comrades, to be killed.” “I…” “You know it to be true.” “You… You’re right,” I said. “But what does that have to do with anything?” “You must reawaken the other humans.” I edged up to the door, gripping the wall with my back. My wrench rested in the grip of my right hand, ready to strike down any arms that tried to grab me. On the other side of the hall, I caught a glimpse of Versil and Padrex sneaking up to another door, which was labeled “Control Software”. Avi, who was stealthily clinging to the wall behind me, gave Versil a thumbs up as he reached his door. A few moments later, we reached our door. The one with a sign that said “Minifigures” on it. “I can see what you are doing,” the voice said. “I am watching you. You need to stop. It is for your own good, for termination awaits you. However, I am willing to give you one more chance to stop, before I use more force. Stop what you are doing and go back to the cryosleep chambers, and fall asleep.” “No way, José!” Padrex remarked, cheerfully summing up our thoughts. “You leave me no choice. I will apply force, and you will die for the safety of yourselves.” With a few characteristic whirring noises, I saw a large wall segment next to me retract, pulled back by robotic arms. It was quickly discarded into an unseen space, revealing six arms behind it. Each arm wasted no time in whirring forward and trying to grab at me. This time, however, we were ready. The first arm zoomed forward, trying to grab at my neck. I quickly swung my wrench in an arc downwards, hitting the arm with a tremendous bang. The pincer was smashed into the ground, bringing the arm down with it. The arm clicked once before coming to a rest. However, a second arm had already descended, grasping for the wrench this time. I brought the wrench up, and the arm was suddenly missing its pincer. By now, the remaining arms were hanging back, evidently considering what to do. Then, without warning, two arms shot forward, one going for my wrench, the other trying to destroy my neck. To avoid their attack, I jumped back, and the pincers met empty air. I heard a shout in the background, and then the slamming of a door; Evidently, Padrex, Versil and the robot had made their way into the control software room. I did not look back to make sure of this, for fear of being caught off guard by a sudden strike. “Avi, I require help!” I shouted, pointing my wrench at the assemblage of arms, as if it were a lance. Then, suddenly, the first arm advanced, grabbing a hold of my wrench. I shouted for the thing to let go, but it would not listen to my plea. Avi’s timing could not have been more perfect. A bolt of energy appeared out out thin air, striking the arm with a huge crack. I turned away from the arm, shielding my eyes from the sheer light the energy bolt gave off. It was as if lightning had just struck the arm. For a few seconds, the bolt stayed in the air, causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end. Then the lightning dispersed, and I turned my head to see that the arm had gone limp. I also realized that, in the confusion of the moment, I had let go of my wrench. I quickly picked it back up, in time to swing it at another arm which had been advancing. One half of its pincer snapped off, and the arm lamely hung in the air. It twitched the working half of its pincer a few times, before coming to a halt and falling to the floor. And then, before the other arms could make an attack, Avi shot another bolt of lightning at them. The bolt split itself in mid-air, hitting the remaining arms and shocking them into an unworking state. Then I turned, and saw Avi standing and brandishing her new weapon. It was something that combined all of the features of an industrial-grade welder with the body of a rifle. The gun had myriads of exposed wires around its barrel, and each wire converged on the end of the gun. Also located on the end of the barrel were four black prongs, evidently there to focus, or perhaps redirect, energy. The thing looked like it had been patched together much too quickly, for many things on the gun seemed to be slightly crooked. It was just one of the many things Padrex had been able to build with the things we had found in the Miscellaneous Electronics room. “Like it?” Avi asked, a huge grin plastered over her face. I nodded once, then pulled out my pocket-size radio-another gadget Padrex had cooked up. It was essential to our plan. And while we are the subject of the plan, I must note here that we had come up with a new plan, a pla different from our orginal one. We had just finished step one-survive and destroy any attacks thrown at us. “I will not stop until you are smashed,” The voice said. Then, sequentially, three more panels of the wall sunk back, to be replaced by eighteen robotic arms. Well, perhaps we had not exactly finished step one. “Run!” Avi shouted, letting loose a lightning bolt in the direction of the arms. It failed to hit anything, but that did not matter. I was completely focused on getting inside the Human chamber. Yes, that was part two of our plan: Find and free the humans. It was why we were there. Avi reached the door before I did, rushing into the human vault. I paused in front of the door to bat away another arm, and then, without further ado, dashed into the Human chamber. “Duck!” Avi shouted. I complied, barely missing another attack from an arm. I quickly rolled to the side of the door, barely managing to make it out of range of another lightning bolt. The arm which had just tried to kill me fell to the floor, its circuits overloaded. Suddenly, I remembered that I had still my radio in hand. I brought the thing up to my face, held down a button on its side, and started shouting into the thing. “Versil! Versil, can you hear me? We are in the human vault! Deactivate the arms! Versil, hurry!” “We’re trying!” A tinny voice shouted. It was Versil’s, I realized. Despite the fact that the thing was amazingly old, and despite the fact that Padrex wasn’t exactly the most thorough wiring inspector, yes, it still worked. “ASPEKT’s sabotaging us!” “ASPEKT?” I inquired. Another lightning bolt whizzed past my head. “Automatic System for Preserving Experimental Kinetically able Terrestrials!” Versil shouted back, totally confusing me. “It’s the system A.I.!” The system A.I.!? The thing that was designed to operate the entire Ark? This was, undoubtedly and positively, a worst-case scenario. “Why is it doing this?” “I have no idea! Listen, Lyn, you need to get out of there! We can’t save the humans!” The radio slowly dropped to my side. I did not know anyone who resided in this Ark, but they were humans. I felt kind of connection to them, yes, I even felt loyal to them. And now, I was going to abandon them, when we were this close to freeing them from the grip of ASPEKT? Then, the worst possible thing happened. Evidently I had done something Avi calls “spacing out”-that is, being completely absorbed by one’s thoughts. A stray arm managed to catch me by the stomach while I was thinking, and though I did not notice this at first, I did begin to notice it when Avi screamed my name. I suddenly realized I was ten feet in the air, and worse, I had dropped my wrench-again. Avi wouldn’t shoot at the arm gripping me, for fear of shocking me to death with a poorly-aimed strike. And then, I panicked and began struggle against the arm’s pincer, but to no avail. I was trapped. Fear gripped me as another pincer shot out of nowhere and began to squeeze my neck. Its grip slowly tightened, and to my absolute horror, I realized that I could only breathe a small trickle of air. And then, ASPEKT spoke. “I am designed to help humans survive, #001. And after a long amount of time around your species, I realized something: minifigures are too vulnerable to the threat of themselves. Due to the figs here before, I was told what led to the Ark’s creation. The reason the Ark existed was because minifigures smash each other. They built up hate for each other over time, and they found the only way to express their hate was through injuring others. And then, there came a day when humans declared outright war on each other. They split into factions, each one intent on ruling the other. The population decreased by the millions, due to all the battles that occurred. And then, only two factions were left-the Sentinels, and the Paradox. And then, do you know what they did? They realized that, when they sent the humans on their sides out into battle, they were slaughtering them. So they resorted to nuclear warfare, and they destroyed each other outright in one fell swoop." But a small group of the Paradox managed to make it to the other side of the planet, sealing themselves inside of two structures design to keep minifigures alive for as long as possible-the two Arks. And when I was told of this, I realized that the best way to help the humans was to suspend them in cryosleep. And that is why you must not wake them up. If you wake the humans, they will unleash another war upon this land. The only way to help the humans is to keep them from waking up, and you cannot realize this because of your loyalty to your species. So… You must die.” The entire time ASPEKT had been talking, my vision had been blurring. Near the end of its speech, a dim grey curtain seemed to be pulled over my eyes. I tried to breathe one last time, failed, and then gave up hope. I finally realized something: I was going to- And then I felt the arms relax their grip on me. I dimly felt my legs hit the ground, and I slumped forward, landing on my face with a painful smack. That is when I realized something else: I could breathe again. I took in huge gasps of air, slowly regaining my vision. I was lying on the floor, staring across the room at some random door. I groaned and lifted myself to my feet, rubbing my neck-that arm probably had left an extremely nasty bruise. I then found that Avi was adamantly shaking me by the shoulders, causing me to groan for her to stop. “Lyn, you’re awake! Thank goodness! I thought you were going to die, but then Padrex took over the arms!” Avi shouted, running and gesturing so fast, it was as if she were insane. “And by the way, we-” And then ASPEKT began to speak again, its voice full of rage. “No, no! That d-d-d-d-did not just happen! S-smash, you need to s-s-smash!” The machine screamed. And then, without warning, the arm that had very nearly smashed me erratically picked itself up and swung through the air, hitting a door with tremendous force. The door flew into the room behind it with almost comical speed. And then, I noticed the sign beside the door said “Entities 50435-50439. (Warning: Do NOT release.)” “Okay, we need to get out of here, now,” Avi said, all her previous excitement gone. As we slowly backed away from the room without a door, Avi thrust the radio and my wrench into my hands. I pulled the radio up to my face and spoke into it. “Versil, ASPEKT just released something, something bad, and we must get out of here right now. Where do we go?” A few moments passed, and then Versil came back on the other end of the line. “Get to the Control Software room. We’ve got a way to get to the escape pods, but it’s gonna be tricky with that A.I. still in operation.” “We can at least try to make it.” I replied, stopping in front of the Control Software room. I opened the door, seeing a large room full of black boxes. Each one was individually labeled, and shelved on black shelves. Padrex and Versil were currently hunched over a box labeled “Arm System”, evidently hacking a path to freedom for us. QUERC idled around the room. Then, Versil looked up at us, and waved at us to come over and see what they were up to. I complied, noting the two other strange guns on the floor next to the pair. They both looked somewhat like Avi’s lightning gun, but one held a clear container, full of a bubbling green fluid, where a bullet cartridge would be located on a normal gun. The other was slightly smaller than Avi’s gun, and that seemed to be the only difference to it. Aside from the guns, a few electronic implements were laid on the floor-hacking tools, I thought. But it was not time to idle and observe. We had to escape. “Padrex, we need to get out of here, now.” I said. Padrex held up a finger, not bothering to look my way. I heard a few ticks, and then a positive beeping noise. Padrex stepped back from his work, evidently satisfied with his work. “All done!” he exclaimed cheerfully. As he said this, I saw the wall behind him retract, revealing a long pathway that led to some other room. Now we just had to get the hu- And then, Entities 50435-50439 caught up with ourselves. A black tentacle burst through the wall behind us. It was quite shiny-almost as if it were made of metal-and also oozed out a strange, purple slime. The tentacle shot past Versil, barely missing the back of his head, and slammed into a box marked “ASPEKT Control Software”. For a moment, I though I could hear the faintest of screams, but then it was gone, and I was running, running away from the rogue Entities. I felt unbridled fear course though my body, helping me to run faster, to run away from the monsters. And then we were next to an escape pod, and then Padrex opened its door, and we ran inside, and we didn't care about the Ark, or the Humans we had left behind, or anything. We only cared about escape. Each of us jumped into a seat, and then we were flying, flying through the air, being pressed into our seats. And then exhaustion overcome me, and I fell asleep, not caring about anything in the world. Yet, I knew that we had to come back. And we would. Category:Post-Gameplay Era